The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1887-09-22
Legends of Fish.

Tho japanese have q legend that
fish are the embodiment of the souls
of naval officers, and the African
negroes believe that magicians assume
the shape of fish and come to their
nets to work evil.
An amusing story is told of the skate.
It seems, that in years gone by, when
the fish assembled to select for them
selves a king. the skate was behind
hand, and his mouth is now one sided
from his not being chosen king.
According TO popular notion once
credited, the plaice was produced from
q small crnstacean animal of the
shrimp kind. But this vulgar error
has been explained by the fact that
the ova is deposited in localities fire.
quented by shrimps.
There was an old Highland tradition
that the behring's quilted the coasts
where blood had been shed, and il
seems that this notion was revived
after the battle of Copenhagen, ''when
it was said that they had deserted the
Baltic on account of the noise of the
guns"
A story is related of st. Corentin of
Brittany that every morning a little
fish was seen in a fountain near the
hermitage. The saint caught it. cut
off a sufficient quantity for his repast,
then threw the rest in the water, when
the fish became whole again, and on
the following morning was ready for
another quartering.
''An author" writes Miss Phipson,
in her animal Lore of SHAKESPEARE
Time" actually affirms that the
whale was designed by Providence for
the special purpose of, at certain sea-
sons of the year, frightening the her.
ring away from its native shores into
those regions where it would be OBJ
tainable with greater ease by man."
A popular nickname for the Dream
in Cornwall is ''choke-children." The
story runs that one day st. Leven was
fishing, when he caught two of these
fish on one hook three times in sue
cession. He took them home to his
sister, but the result was unfortunate,
for .'the fish were cooked and, the
children being hungry, were chOked
by eating the bones"
''In Normandy" writes Hoare, in
his ''Giraldus," ga few days before the
death of Henry IL. the fish of a certain
pool fought so furiously with each
other that the neighboring people
were attracted to the spot by the noise.
So desperate was the conflict that
scarcely a fish was found alive
in the morning, thus by wonderful
prognostic foretelling the death of one
by that of many"
The fisherman in Scotland declare
that the salmon's tail is pointed ''since
Loki became salmon, and was caught
by that appendage while slipping
through net set for him by the gods. 7"
Curious to say, in some parts of Scot
land the salmon is held in great aver
sion, its name not even being mem
toned. Thus, in certain districts, it
is known as the so and SOS fish,
and in others as the beast.
The pike is an important fish in folk
legends. In Russian fairy-tales the
pike is form assumed by the devil in
order to eat the young hero, who has
become little perch. Some old nat
uralists have accounted for the sudden
and mysterious appearance of the pike
in ponds far from other water by the
theory that they were produced by the
heat of the sun from a weed known as
pickerel-weed.
A curious legend is related by an
eastern traveller who, describing river
which flows from the Caucasus into
the Black sea, says: Every year there
arrives in this part of the river a great
quantity of fish. The people cut off
the flesh on one side of them, eat it,
and let the fish go. The next year the
fish return again and offer the other
side, which they had preserved un-
touched. 1t is then discovered that
new fish has replaced the DID,"